Tag Archives: Comment Spam

Slow Days for Spam

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Today’s later-than-usual post is brought to you by Bay Area traffic, which continues to get worse and worse. That actually has nothing to do with the post, but it did get me wonder: when Google sends a daily alert saying traffic is heavier than usual, does that represent a kind of grade inflation? Should they eventually rebase “normal”?

Moving on.

Do you know how long it’s been since I looked at blog spam? Not since December of 2015. That’s a long time, considering how much spam the blog gets. The thing is, entertaining spam is hard to come by these days. The overwhelming majority today is just a solid block of links. Not entertaining at all.

But every so often something worth a snicker shows up.

In fact, kiwis contain more nutrients per calorie than another fruit. Nutrition sets rapidly with spinach left inside dark refrigerator. Does eggs spoil At first they then were simple, such like a few twigs coming from a sacred grove, and food. Ever wondered why bananas will almost always be kept on hanger in markets and supermarkets. One on the biggest budget killers you may find after you own a cafe or restaurant is waste control.

“More nutrients per calorie”? Is that really something anyone pays attention to? Why would anyone think eggs don’t spoil? Has “smells like rotten eggs” for anything sulfurous dropped out of the language entirely? In what universe are twigs from a sacred grove simple? I would have thought the presence of divinity would complicate them immensely.

Does it all become clearer when you know the spammer was selling vodka and minced garlic? They both have some value in food preservation, which seems to be his main concern.

Hi there!
I honestly can’t think of any business that wouldn’t want their business in a tv commercial.
However its really expensive and so untargeted! BUT How many sales or customers do you think you will gain if you had a commercial running when they were LOOKING for your business?
[It goes on for several more paragraphs, but they don’t add anything other than the URL.]

Really? No businesses that wouldn’t want to be on TV? “Come on down to Crazy Earl’s for all your smuggling needs! Boat rentals! Tunneling equipment! Ten percent off your first bribe!” Nah.

Okay, so it’s harder to think of a legal business that couldn’t benefit from advertising. But this guy–he claims his name is Steve–certainly has an interesting idea of how targeted advertising works, doesn’t he? Do people really watch certain TV shows when they’re looking for a plumber? Or a doctor? And if targeted advertising is so great, why is he using untargeted ads to promote his service?

The real prize the latest batch of spam, though, is Laura. Not because her pitch is creative, but because she’s amazingly persistent. Laura works in email, rather than blog comments so she can make sure you see her messages.

Wesley Surber did a good write-up of Laura’s approach over at Campfire Chess. Aside from correcting a typo, the only difference between the email he got and the one she sent me was in the generic keyword.

Unlike Wesley, I ignored Laura’s message. Apparently that was a mistake. He never heard from her again. Not only did she send me a follow-up message three days later, but when I ignored that one, she sent a third missive a couple of days after that.

Still, at least Laura is polite. She says “Thank you,” which is more than most spammers do. And, hey, she respects the relation I have with you guys. Isn’t that good to know?

All in all, though, it’s not much of a haul for twenty months. I never thought I’d be nostalgic for creative spam.

All the News That’s Fit to Be Tied

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There’s all kinds of news about the Bay Bridge Bolt Botch, but (a) I just wrote about it last Thursday, and (b) it’s depressing. I don’t see any reason to inflict it on you today. For that matter, I don’t see any reason to inflict it on me today. I’ll let it accumulate a little longer, and deal with it some day when I’m feeling crankier.

Then there’s the whole “Deflategate” contretemps. There’s a lovely, heartwarming post there about how the Patriots are handling the situation and how it compares to the way they dealt with Aaron Hernandez two years ago. But again, it’s depressing, and I really don’t feel like facing down the decline of civilization today. I’m going to put that one aside for a day when it’s not sunny and seventy degrees out.

The least depressing subject I can come up with today is the accumulated spam in my mailbox. I suppose I should find it depressing that I don’t find spam depressing, but if I go down that mental rat hole, I’m going to need an ice cream sundae to cheer up, and [insert deity of choice] knows I don’t need the calories.

Moving on.

  • “You don’t have to look from bank to bank to be able to discover which a bad credit score loan is the most suitable to suit your needs anymore.” Questionable grammar aside, this is some of the most accurate advice I’ve ever seen in a spam comment. You don’t have to look from bank to bank, because now the would-be loaners come to you! Incidentally, this spammer is actually selling shoes “from china”. I’m guessing that he got a bad credit score loan, and is now scrambling to pay it off. Why else would he be selling ceramic shoes?Do you suppose he could give us a good price on glass slippers?
  • “I need a good male pseudonym to use when blogging.. Sorry if this is the wrong place for the question :(. It sort of relates because I want to blog, but I don’t want my acquaintances/friends to see it..” Oh, come on. It’s been more than twenty years since we learned that nobody knows you’re a dog, and you’re still trying to come up with a pseudonym? Really, buddy, just use your real name. If any of your friends complain about your lousy spammed advertisements, just tell them it must be some other John Smith. Or Mary Jones, as the case may be. Hmm. I see your website is down. Maybe you shouldn’t have used a pseudonym and a stolen credit card number to sign up with the ISP.
  • “The Internet is a place where people can have lots of fun. This can be really annoying for individuals that utilize the network continuously. She has a plan to help you clear the way to the top.” Apparently, her plan is to sell you password cracking software. My college German is sort of spotty these days, but judging by the example pictures on the website*, her software will mostly get you into porn sites. “Lots of fun” indeed–for certain values of fun, anyway.

    * For the record, I use a throwaway, emulated computer for checking spammers’ sites. After I look, I wipe the virtual machine and start fresh. This was the first time I actually saw the sacrificial machine get infected with ransomware. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether most spammers are too intent on selling junk to bother assaulting computers, or if this one was just clumsier than the norm.

  • “I love the very first day of peeling when you’ll be able to look down your shirt while at the office, and spend for hours on end reaching your turn in there and peeling off skin in big sheets and I feel just like a snake” This is, without question, my favorite spam comment of all time. Can’t you just picture the poor, sunburned spammer sitting at his computer, trying to type up his latest come-on, while being constantly distracted by the urge to take off his shirt right there in his cubicle so he can peel the dead skin off? Look, in those long-gone days when I went outside, I occasionally got sunburned. And when I did, I’ll admit that I did find the urge to peel myself almost irresistible. But I never did it in the office, thank you very much.

    As for this guy’s claim to feel like a snake, it’s got nothing to do with his alleged sunburn. He’s selling phony virus prevention tools. The kind that open an browser window that can’t be closed because all of the buttons start downloading their alleged miracle software onto your computer.

    There’s a reason that this kind of crap is called “snake oil“. Clearly in this case, the spammer is making his own merchandise…

Spam: The Next Generation

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Why yes, the blog’s spam trap is still catching strange and wonderful new marketing approaches.

Mind you, it’s also still catching huge steaming piles of all-natural fertilizer–lately I’ve been getting several hundred spam attempts a day for online dating, all of which are straight out of the boring, “seen it a million times” school of spam.

Herewith, an assortment of the creative attempts to use my blog to sell you things you didn’t know you needed.

  • gaming laptops under 600 pounds I thought all laptops were under 600 pounds. I certainly don’t want to put one that isn’t on my lap. Maybe they ran afoul of an English/Metric conversion glitch? I’d buy a 600 gram gaming laptop. That was, by the way, the entire message. No details, no link to a website, no attached malware. I have no idea how they expected to make any money.
  • When choosing the colours for you office, there are a few basic points to consider. Agcefefgakbd Another spammer who seems unclear on the concept of driving traffic somewhere: no link, no indication of what’s being sold–and no hint about the considerations involved in painting your office.
  • Human beings during Adam’s era that thought his knowledge of the times was the ultimate reality. For example, when you need reliable vehicle lighting you must try to find flexibility in mounting options. I’ve seen spam invoke biblical authority before, but never for automotive parts. And the use of Adam as the authority is interesting. Did he even own a car? Where would he have driven? There can’t have been much night life in Eden.
  • Today, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iphone and tested to see if it can survive a twenty five foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is entirely off topic but I had to share it with someone! Any other considerations aside–what’s the point of having an iPhone if you’re going to leave it home where your cousin can get her hands on it–I wish you would explain how dropping your iPhone destroyed your iPad! Given some of the stories I’ve covered here, this one might actually be on topic for the blog if you come up with a few more details. However, you’re right that your game cheats website is off topic.
  • Woodman ended her life in January 1981 by throwing herself of a building after having a long period of depression. Wear old garden clothes when tending to flowering lilies inside garden to stop unwanted stained clothing. I have a sneaking suspicion that the best thing I can do to ward off depression and keep my clothes clean is to NOT buy calla lilies from this spammer. Calla lily spam was really hot for about a week. Did some florist overestimate the number of funerals in his area?
  • Article writing is also a fun, if you know then you can write or else it is complicated to write. I’m guessing this spammer thought I’m still in the QA business and used me to test his new spamming software. Hints for the future: Include a link to what you’re selling and don’t post from an account named “test3”.
  • I like reading an article that can make men and women think. Also, thanks for allowing for me to comment! You’re welcome. I like those articles too. It’s odd, though: I find it much harder to write an article that only makes one gender think. Drop me a note if you have some hints to improve my single-sex writing skills. They might come in useful if I ever decide to spam-sell sports equipment. No, wait, if I do, I’m going to want to sell to men and women.
  • Innovative high heels Guide Exposes Method To Dominate The high heels Scene I hadn’t realized there was a high heels scene, though I can’t say I’m surprised–or startled that it’s apparently linked to domination. Two questions: If everyone uses your method, who’s actually going to dominate the scene? And where do the discount sunglasses you’re selling fit into the high heels scene?
  • Here you will benefit from the elephant trip. After that you’ll discover the Metropolis Palace Advanced and museums. Is it just me, or does this message make more sense when you know the poster is selling health care products of dubious effectiveness. You had heard that many herbal supplements–most of which have never been shown to have any health benefits in the first place–don’t contain the herbs they list on the label? I’m puzzled why this was attached to my piece about Pilot Bread. Maybe the seller thinks elephants like Pilot Bread.
  • That is why we advise injecting grizzly bear adrenaline into your initially cup in the morning. Because there’s nothing better than a hot mug of bear extract to kick your brain into gear. Safety first: make sure you wear this seller’s ski gloves whenever you handle raw grizzly bear adrenaline!

Try Harder Next Time

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My Twitter-inspired post about the types of spam I get reminded me that it’s been entirely too long since I cleaned out my folder of amusing spam. Since I was talking about sales on Tuesday, I’ll continue the theme and remedy the lack of spam in your diets.

Let’s start with a bit of meta-amusement. This spam was submitted as a comment on an earlier collection of amusing spam. Clearly the poster was inspired to improve on the examples in that post.

Today’s dryers can partially iron your dried clothes in your case. While shown to be quite effective for deterring mosquitoes and other insects and somewhat effective for deterring ticks, there are possible perils associated with using caffeine itself. If you can’t find eye bolts, dowels, nuts & washers with your local store, it’s better to purchase them online. The price for this dryer is around $500, also it comes with a good amount of features.

Given how rarely the content of a spam comment has anything to do with the product being sold, I was amazed to see that this one was selling washing machines. It’s unclear to me whether he’s canibalizing his sales by suggesting you get your washers at a local store, but it’s nice of him to offer an alternative. I think he’s recommending caffeine as a detergent additive, but if so, I’d appreciate some guidance on the proper soap/caffeine ratio.

It’s appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it’s time to be happy. I have read this post and if I could I wish to suggest you some interesting things or tips. Maybe you can write next articles referring to this article. I wish to read even more things about it!

Again, attached to a previous post about spam. So, Mr. Spammer, your request has been granted! And no, I’m not going to direct my readers to your blog. As best I can tell, none of them read Tagalog, so your wall of advertisements wouldn’t mean much to them.

free baby coupons

I’m not sure what babies have to do with questionable business advice. More to the point: what if I don’t need a free baby?

It is not easy to convince individuals to uproot their lives and businesses. I am surrounded by children that are pale skinned, allergic klutzes and, much to their displeasure, they inherited these genes from me.

Maybe if you stopped selling fraudulent homeopathic remedies* and got your kids actual medical help, they wouldn’t be in such poor shape. Heck, sending them outside to play instead of keeping them inside stuffing untested herbal remedies into pill bottles would help too.

* Yes, I know that’s a redundancy. Some things need emphasis.

The only way it can fail is if your husband isn’t really cheating and you were just a little paranoid. India, being the biggest democracy of the world, provides us with the right to take part in the ongoing political, social, environmental events that take place around us. Usually partners are swayed to cheat when their sexual attention is overlooked and when sexual needs remain unfullfilled.

I’m guessing that you don’t consider watching pornographic videos to be cheating, since that’s what you’re selling. Or is my assumption that you’re trying to cause your customers to overlook their partners’ sexual needs more than just a little paranoid? Where does India come into this, by the way? Your videos appear to be primarily Japanese, and your website is hosted in Germany. Are dirty movies political, social, or environmental?

Hello. Ok, i’ll introduce the author. His name is Romeo Basil. Illinois is his birth place and he doesn’t be sure to consider changing that. What he loves doing is croquet but they are struggling locate time because of it. Dispatching has been my normal work for quite a while and also the salary is really fulfilling.

Actually, no. I’m the author of the post, thank you very much, and I’ve never met Mr. Basil. That said, I’m pleased to hear he’s not planning to change his birthplace; I’m sure his parents and the Social Security Administration are delighted to hear it as well. If he loves croquet, but can’t find the time for it, maybe he should consider going professional. I’m not sure what the typical earnings for full-time croquet players are these days, but they’re probably no worse than the typical spammer’s earnings. And, since you’re such a good friend of Basil, maybe you can cut him a deal on airport parking as he flies around the world competing in croquet tournaments.

Spam–And Not the Funny Kind

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Well, that didn’t take long.

I’ve been on Twitter less than a week, and already I’ve gotten as much spam at this address as I had in the previous year and a half.

Granted, we’re not talking huge absolute numbers. Before this week, I’d gotten exactly two spam e-mails. Since I first tweeted last Wednesday, I’ve gotten two more.

Let me make it clear that I’m not blaming Twitter. If you have an e-mail address, you’re going to get spam. Period. Even if you don’t publicize it in any way, you’ll get hit by someone generating random addresses. Publicize the address and you’ll get even more spam. I’m sure I’ll get at least two more spam e-mails shortly after I join [latest must-use social network].

At least in the US, there are laws to prevent spam. Unfortunately, as The Register points out, the law only allows ISPs to sue spammers, not the individuals who get spammed. Nor does the FTC have any funding to go after spammers. So if you get a few dozen–or hundred, or thousand–spam messages, you need to convince your e-mail provider to pursue the sender on your behalf. Good luck convincing Google or Comcast. Even if they took any action, the cost of investigating, much less actually suing, would far exceed any damages they could claim.

But I digress. I didn’t intend to bitch about being spammed. What I wanted to talk about is how uncreative the spammers are. I see the same spams over and over. Take the attempts to spam the comments on this blog*. They fall into four categories. As I write this, there are twenty-seven comments in the spam trap waiting for my review.

* Granted, comment spam isn’t quite the same as e-mail, but the principles are similar.

  1. Flattery – Fifteen are compliments on my wonderful writing, the lovely layout of the blog, or the great music I’m sharing. It’s boilerplate text: I get the same compliments over and over. (I include the ones asking for suggestions for tools to keep the spammer’s blog free of spam in this category. There are two of those in the current batch.) Oh, and let’s not forget the ones who claim I visited their website and they’re just returning the favor. That’s so nice of them. Why do they all think I’ll be flattered when they go on to tell me they’re planning to steal my content to enhance their own sites? (The e-mail equivalent of these comments are the attempts to offer me loans at ruinous interest rates by telling me how wonderful my credit score is.)
  2. Offers to help improve my site – Four are offers to sell me search optimization tools or pre-optimized content. I love those latter ones: no reason why I should go to all the trouble of writing content, right? Just buy schlock that used to be high in Google’s rankings and I’ll make a fortune from the ads on my site. Because of course the only reason anyone would have a blog would be to use it as an ad farm. Note, by the way, that none of the links in the four spams in the current batch actually lead to sites selling SEO tools or SEO content. Two are selling clothing, one is selling fake rolexes, and the other is, I think, offering some kind of dietary supplements. I’m not certain about that last one. The site is in French, a language I don’t know.
  3. Sales pitches – Four are flat-out sales attempts. Typically three-quarters of them are a long list of links, and the rest are a short blurb about what they’re selling.
  4. Other – I’ve got four of them in this batch. Three are the kind of word salad we’ve laughed about in previous posts. I’m particularly amused by the attempt to sell Louis Vuitton suitcases by telling me that scientists believe the cause of “the disorder” is a viral infection. I infer that the disorder in question is the need for designer luggage. Or maybe the need to send spam.

So, twenty-seven spams. One using a method I haven’t seen before: someone in Poland is trying to sell space heaters by telling me that he’s not satisfied with the content on my blog. “I have not identified what I desired,” he assures me. I’m tempted to send him U2’s latest album. Maybe that’s what he’s looking for.

Why do they keep trying the same techniques over and over, usually using exactly the same words? Do they really get enough clicks to cover the cost of renting the software that spreads the spam? (I’m not even considering the cost of the website they’re trying to lure us suckers into visiting.)

I doubt it. My suspicion is that spam has reached the point where it becomes self-sustaining. People see how much of it there is, figure that if there’s so much, it must be because it works, and they send their own hoping to get rich quickly. That means more people see more spam, and jump on the bandwagon. The only ones getting rich, of course, are the ones who write the spam-sending software.

Spam III: The WTF Issue

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As usual, attempts to spam the blog comments are a problem. Most of it gets deleted automatically, but I do still have the privilege of reviewing a few that the spam-catcher can’t make a decision on. I thank the technogods for the spam-catcher on a daily basis: at last report, over 9,000 spams have been deleted since the blog launched. If I had had to delete them all manually, I would have given up in disgust months ago and turned comments off–and that’s no way to run a railroad. Or a blog.

I do appreciate the opportunity to review the borderline cases, though. How else could I find such fascinating blank verse as It is really entry levels with respect to black metallic without reserving unyielding passion to suit another function. Phantom’s screams is standard associated with genre, with a few distance given to its harshness.? For the record, I have no idea what this was intended to sell, even after looking at the linked website. But I would consider my life immeasurably impoverished if I had never been introduced to entry levels of black metallic phantoms.

The spam tells me about blog features I didn’t even know about: I visited several web sites however the audio feature for audio songs present at this web page is really fabulous. Just think, if it hadn’t been for this attempt to use my blog to sell counterfeit designer jeans, I would never have known I had been posting music!

The positive feedback helps me get through those days when the words refuse to flow. Consider this bit of egoboo; apparently even my most minor posts are fabulous. The brief “Orly?” post in which I urged people to vote in the turkey sandwich poll […]has touched alll the internet people, its really really fastidious piece of writing on building up new webpage. Oh, pardon me. It’s “fastidious,” not “fabulous.” A slight difference. I guess I won’t be buying any “parajumpers” (whatever those are) from the spammer’s site in gratitude after all.

Mind you, some of the spam is a bit worrisome. This comment, posted to last year’s Google I/O commentary, seems to be promoting cannibalism: The brick oven dishes out hand-made pizzas with the toppings of your choice: tuna, calamari, pepperoni, beef and chicken. Brussels sprouts, 5 sprout ——————————————————-3. Then grill and chop the chicken before dicing the tomato. Pithi Dastoor: In this ceremony, turmeric paste is applied on the hands and the feet of the bride and the groom. Slightly more unusual is the chicken chaat, chicken tenders with tamarind mango seasoning. Either that or it’s suggesting uses for the pigeons attracted to the rice thrown at weddings. Makes you want to reconsider your use of Nexus devices, doesn’t it?

I think this is a public service announcement for safer sex: There are safe places to go where your anonymity will be preserved. If you really did a cost-benefit analysis of sexual acting out, you might see that the benefit is fleeting and the costs’well, you know what they are. It needs a bit of punching up, and I’m not sure what it has to do with ordering songs on a CD, but I suppose it’s a worthwhile effort. I thought maybe the linked page would have the kicker to drive home the point, but no. The linked page was several screens full of apparently random gibberish. Maybe it was some sort of code. Do you suppose the NSA is trying to use my blog to pass secret messages to its overseas agents?

Speaking of “worrisome” and “safer sex”, consider this little number: Goat care becomes enjoyable when the person giving care and the goat enjoys each other. Surprisingly enough, the linked site appeared completely innocent. Intimations of bestiality used to draw eyeballs to a collection of animated gifs and low-resolution flash movies? Whatever will they think of next?

Apparently, what they’ll think of next is a whole new view of geography: The University of West Indies is also a home to many tourist attractions. It is only weak against itself, so meaning you will deal tonnes of damage against most dragons. Individuals are traveling the world when they come to Toronto. I’m not sure when UWI moved to Canada–or did Toronto relocate to warmer climes–but I suppose anything is possible when dealing with dragons. Didn’t anyone warn the Canadians that it’s dangerous to get them mad?

Still, it’s reassuring to see that there’s still creativity and energy being put into the ancient art of selling people things they don’t need.

posted through poppo in 10:30 AM in Might Several, 07

Oh, come on! You’re not even trying!

What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable knowledge on the topic of unexpected emotions. Ooh, blank verse and compliments in one post? And selling something as useful as dubious weight loss drugs? Sign me up!

Eat Hearty!

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I think it’s time for another spam post. Sorry, no recipes involving toilet bowl cleaner this time, but we’ve got a few things almost as tasty.

Most of the spam comments showing up these days seem to be pushing designer goods. Or, more likely, counterfeit designer goods. One has to admire their creativity. Today, for example, somebody posted this message: “which are a part of every room because Various spaceships will attack you as you move between planets. and a gorgeous goody bag to take home. Until that happens,.” I’m sure I don’t need to explain that he was selling Michael Kors merchandise. What, you mean it’s not obvious? I thought everyone knew that Michael Kors purses were the perfect shipping container for whatever is left of your body after a spaceship attack.

Then there’s a delightful ode to Jimmy Choo shoes and wallets. Most of it seems to be a paragraph about Supercross motorcycle racing that has been run through an automatic translation a few times too many. This sentence is perhaps most telling:

Anyone new to race cars, in particular bicycles as well as the menstrual cycles, you will have Jimmy Choo store trouble distinguishing forwards and backwards.

Indeed, if you have trouble distinguishing “bi” from “menstrual” when it comes to cycles, you will indeed have trouble. What it all has to do with shoes remains unclear to me.

There was a period of about a week when the spam was dominated by come-ons for payday loans. My favorite? Easy!

Amazon’s too kinda inexplicably stirred the sliding force where the almost ravening ebook readers bouncy?

Ravening ebook readers? Sign me up! Can I borrow enough money to get bouncy with Amazon too?

I admire the honesty of the loan arranger who wanted to assure us that “Loans are the poor-term immediate it’s very casual, rock-steady and identical libertine.” I decided not to refinance the house with him when he went on to note that “The primary borrower along with the co-signer, who is required to be borrowed.” Somehow, I just didn’t think Maggie would appreciate being loaned out.

Loan pitches were followed by online gambling ads. One of the first was from somebody who had a very interesting notion of how gambling works:

Certainly Blackjack will Facilitate the Arse transmission line of the Racetrack operators […] that will wreak them to their terminus.

Well, yes, I can sort of see where he’s going with this. But then he continues:

So cross your fingers, say of sexually abusing his daughter from ages 10 to 11. paypal casino Read the all right incentive is referred to as a tally bonus.

Really? I wonder if Google’s child porn filter team is onto this one.

I think this ad sums up the state of online gambling very well. It read, in its entirety:

Enligt mig är det inte ens värt jobbet att läsa resten av argumenten, det sket sig ju liksom i början.

Translated from the Swedish, that’s “According to me it is not even worth the job to read the rest of the arguments, it crapped out after all, as in the beginning.”

Moving on.

Apparently lip balm is wonderful stuff. “Say good-bye to test anxiety be sure to use a lip balm or chapstick to protect them from cancer.” It protects against cancer and test anxiety? Nice! Where can I get some? Not from this seller, it seems. He’s actually pushing his line of acne removal products. Priorities, man, priorities! Save the world from test anxiety first, then worry about pimples.

Fortunately, there are some advertisers who understand that you catch more flies sell more product with honey than vinegar. This enterprising entrepreneur demonstrates:

You will be truly a beneficial web marketer. Your website filling quickness will be awesome. It seems that you are carrying out every special technique. Furthermore, This belongings tend to be must-see. you must have done an excellent course of action with this theme!

I’m not quite sure what my awesome writing and web marketing skills have to do with the “iPhone app building info” he’s selling, but I’m almost flattered enough to overlook the fact that the sample information on his website is obviously taken straight out of Apple’s iOS development kit.

Finally, as we move deep into the holiday gift-giving season, remember to buy plenty of Ugg boots. After all:

In this, a virus that also causes chicken pox affects the skin and creates bands of blisters which are full of liquid, pus, etc.

I know I want a pair, and I’m sure all of my friends will too!

Eating Spam

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One of the most vexing aspects of writing a blog is the hassle of dealing with people trying to use the comment feature for spamming.* There are some good tools and techniques out there to make it simpler; for instance, WordPress-hosted blogs such as this one come pre-configured to use the Akismet service, which traps suspected spam for manual review. I’ve been seeing more and more spam hitting Akismet lately; I try to regard that as a good thing. Clearly, I’m getting more exposure, which is what I want, but it doesn’t make dumping the spam any less annoying.

* Some language purists would say that I really shouldn’t call it spamming, since that implies email; I should at least qualify it as “comment spamming”. To those people, I say “phooey”. The use of “spam” to refer to obnoxious, out of place advertising started out referring to Usenet posts and was then applied to email at a later date. If I choose to re-interpret it further and change the definition of “UCE” from “Unsolicited Commercial Email” to “Unsolicited Commercial Everything”, that’s my authorial privilege.

Most spam at the moment follows a standard pattern: the text of the comment is something innocuous that the spammer hopes will slip by the filtering process and get the link to their website out there. The website, of course, is either a commercial pitch, malware infection site, or both.

I get a lot of spam where the comment is something like this (taken from my current Akismet queue):
Hola! I’ve been reading your weblog for some time now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Houston Tx! Just wanted to say keep up the good job!
I hadn’t realized it took that much courage to say “hi”. Am I really that intimidating? I guess I must be: the comment is on the Google Glass Porn post from almost two weeks ago. And if you’re in Houston, why is your website (I’ll spare you readers the actual link – my skill with Polish is something less than zero, but the images suggest it’s a one-page come-on for an Internet gambling site.) hosted in Poland? Couldn’t you find a spam-friendly hosting site in Texas? Anyway, hi there. Thanks for stopping by, and welcome to the virtual garbage can.

Sometimes they get a little more creative. Here’s another one from the current queue:
It’s truly very difficult in this full of activity life to listen news on TV, therefore I only use world wide web for that purpose, and obtain the most recent information.
I’m glad to know that I’m easier to digest than the television news. On the other hand, if I thought this guy was serious, I’d worry about declining standards. Is TV news really so bad that the Web is a more reliable source? Or have we reached the point where “most recent” is more important than anything else? On the gripping hand, how much can I really read into this guy’s spam, given that he obviously missed the step in the spammer’s manual about either selling something or taking over computers to sell to a botnet: his website is a freshly-installed blog that has nothing but the default “first post” supplied by the install. *sigh* Also trashed.

And then there are the good ones. The useful ones. Every so often, something winds up in the spam trap that provides some actual entertainment or utility. Consider this gem that showed up a couple of weeks ago:
Include things like, should captured involving sixty minutes after or before consumed.
On the inside a method toilet bowl, do tomato vegetables, 1/2 goblet olive oyl, garlic clove, olives, basil, parsley, 1 tsp pepper and salt; blow okay that includes lumber scoop. You have to for you to get out of beds in comparison with healthy nose associated quality fruit.
Some people enjoy a drink an excessive amount of out without ever absolutely seeing a lot of a unique side-effects.

No, don’t skip past it. Go back and read it. Let it soak in. Glory in it. Get out of bed and become one with “healthy nose associated quality fruit”.

OK, moving on. I want to talk about the content of this comment, but before I do, I’ll just note that the website this person wants us to visit appears to be a one-page site trying to sell coffee makers. The site’s registered owner has a Los Angeles address, a comment-posting computer in New York, and a significant disconnect from either sanity or the English language. Or maybe both.

The post is, I believe, an example of machine-translated text and I wish I had had it available when I wrote about machine translation last month. I believe it’s machine-translated because I would really hate to think it was human-translated or – worse yet – written in English originally.

So what are we making here? We’ve got tomatoes, olive oil (I’ll skip the Popeye jokes), garlic, olives, basil, parsley, salt, and pepper. Without the tomatoes and olives, it could be the basis of a decent pesto. Adding them back in, though, about the only idea I’ve been able to come up with is a bruschetta. Presumably the bread got lost in the course of translation.

Oh, wait. We missed an ingredient. We completely forgot the Method antibacterial toilet bowl cleaner. What, you don’t think it’s an ingredient? Consider that the product website specifically says it contains no toxic chemicals and relies on citric acid. And it’s got a spearmint scent! By using this product, we avoid the necessity of squeezing a lemon and chopping mint. Slick!

OK, blow the ingredients with a lumber scoop. If you don’t have a 2×4 handy to fan with, you can probably substitute pounding them with a wooden pestle. Or maybe just mixing them with a wooden spoon. One way or another combine them and make sure they touch wood. That’s clearly critical.

Pour yourself a drink. Apparently as long as you drink it with this… um… concoction you won’t see a lot of unique side-effects. Just a few standard ones.

Lunch, anyone?